This could be the biggest backtrack in gaming history: Microsoft will reverse course on their DRM policies for Xbox One, dropping their Internet requirements and all restrictions on used games, according to the websites WhatHiFi and GiantBomb.

According to both reports, the announcement will be made today.

Citing multiple sources, GiantBomb says Microsoft has decided to remove a laundry list of Xbox One restrictions that customers considered negative:

No more always online requirement
The console no longer has to check in every 24 hours
All game discs will work on Xbox One as they do on Xbox 360
Authentication is no longer necessary
An Internet connection is only required when initially setting up the console
All downloaded games will function the same when online or offline
No additional restrictions on trading games or loaning discs
Region locks have been dropped

Since they revealed the Xbox One in May, Microsoft has faced non-stop criticism for announced policies that could drastically change the way we play games in the future. The Xbox One, they said, would require players to connect to the Internet once every 24 hours in order to keep the box playing games. You would have to activate each game by registering it on the web before playing. The console would also restrict the way that game discs are traded, borrowed, and shared, limiting the number of people who could own and play each game, and restricting trade-ins on a publisher-by-publisher basis.

Microsoft has justified these policies by saying that these moves are consistent with a shift to digital seen on Steam, iTunes and other digital platforms.

By reversing on those policies, Microsoft calls a lot of things into question: what will become of the Xbox One's family sharing plan? Will publishers find other ways to block used games? And what of all the rhetoric of how "the bits"—the data on each game disc, rather than the discs themselves—are the future?

We've reached out to Microsoft for comment but have not heard back yet.

You win some, you lose some. In changing its drastic Xbox One DRM policies today, Microsoft will actually be cutting some of the cooler features announced from the console. Everything's got a price, folks.

"There’s a few things we won’t be able to deliver as a result of this change," Marc Whitten, v.p. of Xbox Live told Kotaku, "One of the things we were very exicted about was 'wherever we go my games are always with me.' Now, of course, your physical games won’t show up that way. The content you bought digitally will. But you’ll have to bring your discs with you to have your games with you. Similarly, the sharing library [is something] we won’t be able to deliver at launch."

That means that two features are being cut, at least for now, from Microsoft's Xbox One plans. Microsoft's concept of having your full game library travel with you is gone.
Microsoft's offer to let you share Xbox One games with up to nine other "family" members is gone, too.

The play-your-games-from-anywhere feature had been tied to the idea that all Xbox One games must be installed to the system's 500GB harddrive in order to run. In theory, if you had registered the game online—a requirement that's also been dropped for disc games for the Xbox One—you'd then be able to play those games from any other console you were logged into. Now, with disc games not needing to be registered, you'd have to bring the disc with you to prove you had the rights to play the game on it.

Those sacrifices are the cost of the new DRM policy that, Whitten says, will give people an Xbox One experience with disc-based games that matches what they had on the Xbox 360. Games won't have to be registered online, and players won't have to connect to the Internet in a 24-hour period to play offline disc-based games. "The way to think about it is that it works the way it does with the Xbox 360," Whitten said. "You can give them, loan them, trade them, play them. They will work exactly as they do today."

It's clear that Microsoft was not planning to make these changes. Even though it's June and the console doesn't launch until November, Whitten said that Xbox One consumers will have to download a day-one patch to enable the Xbox One's offline mode. Presumably, without it, the console will still think it's living in the Xbox One era of E3 2013.

UPDATE: Microsoft clarifies that the planned day-one Xbox One update, which Whitten told me, will "complete some of the software that won’t be there," is actually not a result of today's DRM policy change. Rather, it was always planned and will simply be required for playing off-line, among other things. Not a patch, they say. But, yes, your new Xbox console would have to connect online once in order to do the things Microsoft described today. And then you can keep it offline and play games without re-connecting to the Internet forever.

Microsoft also announced today a loosening of the Xbox One's regional restrictions. "You could buy a console in any country and use it any country," Whitten said. "You can use any disc in that console."

How did Microsoft get their initial plans for the Xbox One so wrong? "We believe a lot in this digital future," Whitten said. "We believe it builds an amazing experience—the ability to have a broader sharing platform and my content coming with me, [but] what we heard is people still wanted more choice… they wanted the familiarity of the physical disc."

Microsoft is obviously doing a big flip-flop here, but is putting a proud face on it. And a grateful one. "The last thing I would say is, 'Thank you for the feedback.'" He wasn't addressing me. He was addressing you. Your voices really were heard.

NOTE: The original headline for this story "Surprise Xbox One DRM Reversal Requires Day One Patch, Cuts Features" was changed to clarify that the console's day-one update was not a result of today's DRM policy change.

Why are you bolding the obvious shit? The whole point of the DRM 24 hour check-in was to authenticate games. Did you think M$ was doing it for shits and giggles? No 24 hour check-in means you have to use the actual discs to authenticate the games just like you do now.

__________________
ZootedGranny:

"That's the reason my FFL team name is TrentGreenLeadBlock. When you see this mother****er coming around the corner on a block, put your children to bed and batten down the hatch on your girl's snatch, because the same power that destroys defenders can scar the minds of the youth and simultaneously impregnate any woman within sight, live or on television."

This system still offers me nothing and those shitty exclusive games are just shit Halo, GOW other then Titanfall nothing looks that great maybe Ryse but the timed button looks rather annoying like a rhythm game. I Admit I will buy this down the road but MS just keeps ****ing up with mistakes just like them choosing Dual-Layer over the ****ing blu-ray last time

Still sticking with the ps4, they have the first party exclusives for every genre. I am not convinced Microsoft will keep putting out games, seems like they will revert to the old recipe which is throwing cash at third party developers, GOW and Halo.

Still sticking with the ps4, they have the first party exclusives for every genre. I am not convinced Microsoft will keep putting out games, seems like they will revert to the old recipe which is throwing cash at third party developers, GOW and Halo.

yep, Sony blows the walls off when it comes to exclusives. MS can't touch them.